do you keep making the same dating mistake over and over again

[anchorman]

This is my latest essay which you can read at wect dot com in the off the wahl section

Timeline

 

An old college professor of mine started every class by quoting the same worn out cliché; “Those who fail to study history are doomed to repeat it.”

 

 I didn’t understand the wisdom behind those words until recently. To keep from making mistakes, it’s not world history you need to study- it’s the history of your life.

 

The other day I started to create a timeline to document my romantic relationships. You remember the timelines from your grade school social studies book.  On the base line of the bar graph slash marks indicate the year or decade.  Keeping track of the major milestones requires you to move your finger vertically up the page until it lands on a picture or short sentence.

 

Maybe by putting my romantic life on paper I’d finally see a larger picture. Maybe there are hidden patterns in my dating life. Maybe I’ve been making the same mistake over and over again.

         

The project put my memory to the test; “When did I meet Becky? Was that my sophomore or junior year?”

         

At other moments my mind was having an internal debate; “Should I even put Michelle on the page? We only dated for a month. Does that really qualify? Should she make the cut?”

         

 By comparison the authors of text books had it easy. Figuring out the dates of a war was as simple as marking the first and last gun shots. My dating life was far more complicated. “What should I do about the on again- off again- relationship with Erica? Does she get one line or should I divide her up like Rocky movies; Erica 1…Erica 2 the sequel?”

         

Eventually the romantic timeline started to take shape. The names of love’s past begin to fill the page. Eleven women, starting with my high school sweetheart and ending with the mother of my son, were inducted into this paper hall of fame.

         

Putting down my pencil I stared at the sheet for a few moments expecting some epiphany to come charging off the page. To my surprise that’s exactly what happened. All these women had one common denominator.

         

“Why didn’t  I see this before?”

         

There wasn’t time to ponder my question. The evidence in front of me was speaking so loudly that I had to focus on my next move. Like it or not the time had come to a dump my latest project.

 

She didn’t take the news well. For several moments she sat there on the other side of the table starring randomly off into the coffee shop. Her silence was awkward but not nearly as uncomfortable as the words she finally spoke.

 

“I don’t understand. This doesn’t make sense,” Her voice was quivering from the aftershock “You can’t dump me! We weren’t even dating. I am seeing somebody else! I have a boyfriend!”

 

Oh, yeah, sure, she had a point. We were only friends, but my history experiment predicted the change that was about to occur. It was only a matter of time, according to the timeline, that the two of us would start dating.

 

That’s how it’s always happened in the past.  All the women in the timeline- all of them- were in relationships when we first met. None of them were married, or even engaged, but still the same, they belonged to someone else.

 

I’ve become a master in playing this game. You start off never leading on that you are interested in more than a friendship. Eventually she buys into the trust, confiding in you all the problems and arguments off her current relationship. Step two; become the polar opposite of everything she can’t stand about the boyfriend- a ying to his yang. It’s inevitable- if your patient enough- she undergoes a moment of weakness, a vulnerable time following a huge blow out. Step three; this is pricelessly the right moment to tell her that you’ve met someone else. Step 4 is a simple step back- brace yourself, because now she will pursue you.

 

This system is manipulating. It is calculating. It is heartless. It is sleazy. It works! Like a charm. At least it works in the short term. Eventually after you become a couple things fall apart. Turns out it’s much easier to be the anti-boyfriend and much harder to stand on your own merit.

 

The teachings of King Solomon can be summed up in one of his proverbs;” those who accept correction are on the pathway of life.”The timeline visualized what needed to be done. My future required me to take a different path. Those who fail to study history are doomed to have another bitter break up.

 

Still, even though the old way had proven self destructive there was something oddly comfortable about it. I knew how to manage it, how to tweak it…and most importantly I knew how to survive it. Taking a different route meant embracing the unknown. Wasn’t it possible that the outcome could be worse? I mean- just because I wasn’t going about it in Doug’s way- that didn’t automatically mean I was going about it in God’s way.

 

Nothing about the eyes of the woman across the table made me feel like a man of faith.  Even though she was quiet her face told me what she was thinking. Once again, what she offering wasn’t good enough.  Once again, she had met a man who was not willing to just be her friend.

 

As she got up from the table and started to walk out the door, a big part of me wanted to run after her. A good Christian could look her in the eyes and promise to shelf his history and forget about the timeline. Tell her that the friendship was more than enough and that he would be a fool to live without it.

         

In the end I never moved from my chair. The promise sounded nice, it may even be what she wanted to hear- but I had no confidence in my ability to live up to the vow.

         

The timeline emerged from my pocket. The departed didn’t win a slot, but the fact that I was no longer following the same old path deserved to be recorded. My pencil made a slash mark followed by the date. Vertically moving my hands up the page I couldn’t bring myself to write “God’s Way” so instead I choose the phrase a “different way.”